There may be occasions when an originating caller device maybe flagged or otherwise identified in order to provide special treatment for calls received from that pre-identified device when such calls are conveyed to a predetermined destination. Such a capability in a telecommunication system may save someone's life or result in the capture of serious criminals. By way of example and not by way of limitation, having such a capability in a telecommunication system to identify calls originating from predetermined call originating devices in connection with an emergency service network, sometimes referred to as a 9-1-1 system or network, may permit thwarting of terrorists who may attempt to use the 9-1-1 system to divert resources as part of a terrorist plot.
Such a desirable capability may be embodied in a sub-system for a 9-1-1 network that will permit special flagging, third party notification and intercept of inbound calls. An exemplary application may be illustrated when a person is kidnapped and their personal phone is missing. The telephone number or another identifying piece of information relating to the missing personal phone may be loaded into and stored with the sub-system so that all calls from that missing personal phone may be identified when the phone is used to call a predetermined destination, such as an emergency service call taking station. In this example, flagging could be carried out on a local, regional or nationwide basis. While a kidnapping may not be well known outside of a state, such a widespread notification could advantageously alert officials of the occurrence. As used herein, the term “exemplary” indicates an example and not necessarily an ideal.
An example of such an emergency service call taking station may be a Public Safety Answering Position (PSAP; sometimes referred to as a Public Safety Answering Point).
Examples of special treatment may include, but are not limited to, rerouting said received call (embodied in a received communication or communication signal) to an alternate destination than the predetermined destination, rerouting the received communication signal to an alternate destination in addition to the predetermined destination, notifying a third party of receipt of the received communication signal, interception of the received communication signal before completion of delivery to the predetermined destination, audio capture of audio content of the received communication signal, multi-media capture of multi-media content of the received communication signal, text capture of text content of the received communication signal, e-mail capture of e-mail content of the received communication signal, automatic establishing of a conference call for the received communication signal with at least one third party, and exception handling of the received communication signal to effect other than normal handling of the received communication signal, special routing, third party notification, audio capture of audio content of the received call, automatic conferencing with designated third parties and appropriate exception handling and other non-routine treatments for communications of a type similar to the received communication.
There is a need for a system and method for handling special number calls conveyed to a predetermined destination.
There is a need for a system and method for handling special number calls conveyed to a predetermined emergency service answering position.